It’s gay history month as you know—both all month and as a featured theme in our SPARK campaign. Here are seven films you won’t want to miss about gay men and women in history, including our own, and the film that started the whole gay history documentary movement.
1. BEFORE YOU KNOW IT
Directed by PJ Raval
The subjects of BEFORE YOU KNOW IT are no ordinary senior citizens. They are go-go booted bar-hoppers, love-struck activists, troublemaking baton twirlers, late night Internet cruisers, seasoned renegades and bold adventurers. They are also among the estimated 2.4 million lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans over the age of 55 in the United States, many of whom face heightened levels of discrimination, neglect and exclusion. But BEFORE YOU KNOW IT is not a film about cold statistics and gloomy realities, it’s a film about generational trailblazers who have surmounted prejudice and defied expectation to form communities of strength, renewal and camaraderie. An affirmation of life and human resilience told with humor and candor, BEFORE YOU KNOW IT confirms that you are never too old to reshape society.
http://vimeo.com/93219122
http://beforeyouknowitfilm.com
2. Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay
Directed by Eric Slade
Hope along the Wind tells the dramatic story of Harry Hay, founder of the first successful gay rights organization in America, the Mattachine Society.
www.harryhay.com
http://vimeo.com/48114440
3. Brother Outsider: The life of Bayard Rustin
Directed by Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer
On November 20, 2013, Bayard Rustin was posthumously awarded the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Who was this man? He was there at most of the important events of the Civil Rights Movement – but always in the background. Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin asks “Why?” It presents a vivid drama, intermingling the personal and the political, about one of the most enigmatic figures in 20th-century American history. One of the first “freedom riders,” an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the march on Washington, intelligent, gregarious and charismatic, Bayard Rustin was denied his place in the limelight for one reason – he was gay.
http://newsreel.org/video/BROTHER-OUTSIDER-bayard-RUSTIN
4. Before Stonewall
Directed by Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg
In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city’s gay community. With this outpouring of courage and unity the Gay Liberation Movement had begun.
Before Stonewall pries open the closet door–setting free the dramatic story of the sometimes horrifying public and private existences experienced by gay and lesbian Americans since the 1920s. Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today’s gay rights movement, from the events that led to the fevered 1969 riots to many other milestones in the brave fight for acceptance.
Experience the fascinating and unforgettable, decade-by-decade history of homosexuality in America through eye-opening historical footage and amazing interviews with those who lived through an often brutal closeted history.
http://firstrunfeatures.com/beforestonewalldvd.html
5. BIG JOY: The Adventures of James Broughton
Directed by Eric Slade and Stephen Silha
Years before the Beats arrived in San Francisco, the city exploded with artistic expressions- painting, theatre, film, and poetry. At its center was the groundbreaking filmmaker and poet James Broughton. BIG JOY explores Broughton’s passionate embrace of a life of pansexual transcendence and a fiercely independent mantra: “follow your own weird.”
His remarkable story spans the post-war San Francisco Renaissance, his influence on the Beat generation, escape to Europe during the McCarthy years, a lifetime of acclaim for his joyous finding his soulmate at age 61, and his ascendancy as a revered bard if sexual liberation.
www.bigjoy.org/twirl
6. The Cockettes
Directed by Bill Weber and David Weissman
Documentary about the gender-bending San Francisco performance group who became a pop culture phenomenon in the early 1970s.
http://www.cockettes.com
7. MILK
Directed by Gus Van Sant
The story of Harvey Milk, and his struggles as an American gay activist who fought for gay rights and became California’s first openly gay elected official.
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3658547225/
http://www.focusfeatures.com/milk
8. We Were Here
Directed by David Weissman and Bill Weber
A deep and reflective look at the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco and how individuals rose to the occasion during the first years of this unimaginable crisis.
http://wewereherefilm.com
And the gay documentary that started the gay doc genre.
9. Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives
Directed by the Mariposa Film Group
Thirty years ago, in 1978, Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives startled audiences across the country when it appeared in movie theaters and on television. The first feature-length documentary about lesbian and gay identity made by gay filmmakers, the film had a huge impact when it was released and became an icon of the emerging gay rights movement of the 1970s.
In it, more than two dozen men and women of various backgrounds, ages, and races talk to the camera about being gay. Their stories are arranged in loose chronology: early years, fitting in (which for some meant marriage), disclosing their sexuality, establishing adult identities, and reflecting on how things have changed and how things should be.
Check out this lovely 30 year commemorative trailer that they have on their website: http://www.wordisoutmovie.com/index.htm